Ford BC4 / BC5

Ford's BC manual transaxles — the four-speed BC4 and five-speed BC5 — in the Escort and the small Fords around it.

⚑ These are not the iB5, which replaced them and which most Escort material describes. The iB5 has its own page here, and a reader searching Escort gearbox will find it rather than this — so establishing the year comes before any parts search.

They are cable-shifted and light, built to a cost for a small car, and the linkage is the first suspect in almost every complaint of a vague or baulky change.

Their known weakness is the differential bearing, heard as a rumble that rises with road speed rather than with engine speed — a distinction worth making before the gearbox is blamed.

Parts are scarce now, and on a car of this value that is usually what decides whether one is repaired or replaced.